Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert leads the Keep California Safe initiative press conference at the Whittier Police Memorial in Whittier on Thursday, Jan. 11, 2018. The initiative is calling for reforms to some of the state measures, such as Props. 47 and 57 and AB 109. (Photo by Keith Durflinger, Whittier Daily News/SCNG)

Editor’s note: Breaking views are thoughts from individual members of the editorial board on today’s headlines.

Opponents of Proposition 47 have been desperate for any sort of validation for their narrative that civilization itself has come undone because California voters decided it no longer made sense hitting low-level drug possession and property crime offenders with felony records.

They finally sort of found some validation in a new report from the Public Policy Institute of California on Proposition 47.

To get there, critics of Proposition 47 had to breeze past bits like:

“While crime rates fluctuate from year to year, both violent and property crime rates in California are on a long-term decline. In fact, despite some increases in recent years, crime rates are still at historic lows.”

After going past an examination of violent crime and vehicle thefts and the conclusion that there’s no statistically significant relationship between Proposition 47 and increases there, supporters of wasting significant jail and prison space on low-level offenders find what they’re looking for: some sort of validation.

Guess what happens when you reduce penalties for "nonviolent" crimes — a jump in property crime! I've been urging my legislative colleagues to fix Prop. 47's flaws for years. Maybe they will finally pay attention this year. https://t.co/RCKReulLWs

It’s worth noting an academic, peer-reviewed study using similar methodology found that Proposition 47 wasn’t responsible for crime increases in 2015. The best opponents of Prop 47 could do was misrepresent what the study actually said.

As previously mentioned, the rise in total property crimes from 2014 to 2016 was such that California went from having the lowest property crime rate ever recorded in the state to the second lowest ever recorded.

With respect to larceny theft, California went from having the lowest rate of larceny theft on record in 2014 to the fourth lowest rate ever recorded.

For some additional perspective, California’s larceny theft rates in 2016 were less than half of what they were in the 1970s and 1980s.

For some perspective on what this looks like, this graph from PPIC shows the trajectory of California’s property and violent crime rates.

If you zero in on that time period from 2014 to 2016, sure, there’s an increase. And yes, any increase is a problem that has to be looked at, examined, and dealt with. But does that mean we need to repeal or substantially revise Proposition 47? Not at all.

One critical point to be mindful of is the fact that increases in crime haven’t been uniform across the state.

Research from the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice has shown that from 2010 to 2016, a period marked by substantial decreases in the state prison population, of 511 cities and local areas examined in California, 42 percent showed increased rates of property crimes, with average increases of 12.8 percent. The majority, 58 percent, saw decreases in property crime, with average declines of 18.1 percent.

Statewide crime figures are also significantly impacted by what happens in Los Angeles County. According to CJCJ’s analysis, if you look at violent and property crime trends in California without Los Angeles County, violent crime rates fell 2 percent from 2010 to 2016, while property crime rates fell 6 percent.

Looking at Los Angeles County, you see increases of 8 percent in violent crime rates and 4 percent in property crime rates. But even that is too simplistic. Given the size and wide variation of communities in LA County, it’s worth noting that from 2010 to 2016, while 53 percent of LA County’s 89 jurisdictions saw increases in crime, 47 percent saw decreases.

This tells us crime remains significantly influenced by local conditions and local practices. But it’s important to keep in mind that all of this remains in the context of historically low rates of crime. That’s not up for debate, that’s just a fact.

While some want to drag us back to the fiscally irresponsible practice of relying on incarceration, stiffer punishments and pretending building more prisons is more fiscally prudent than investing in crime prevention, rehabilitation and reentry programs, Californians shouldn’t fall for such mythologies.

With the passage of Propositions 36, 47 and 57, Californians made clear their priorities. Unfortunately, fearmongers, backed by police and deputy district attorney unions whose chief concern is keeping the money flowing to their departments and members, have repeatedly sought to sabotage criminal justice reform with hysterical rhetoric.

It’s ironic that the same Republicans who like to talk about fiscal responsibility and limited government want to trust the state of California to cage even more people, at considerable cost, while doing little-to-nothing to advance alternatives to incarceration which are cheaper and more effective at preventing crime.

The United States, California included, leads the world in incarceration. The notion that warehousing people and branding them with a felony record is the best we can do in response to low-level theft and drug possession is nonsense. And the idea that mass incarceration is the answer after property crimes go from the lowest-in-history to the second-lowest-in-history is devoid of logic.

Sal Rodriguez is an editorial writer and columnist for the Southern California News Group. He may be reached at salrodriguez@scng.com

Sal Rodriguez is the Opinion Editor for the Southern California News Group. He got his start in journalism investigating the abuse of solitary confinement in American prisons and jails with Solitary Watch, and has been published by a variety of publications including The Guardian and Mother Jones. He is a graduate of Reed College in Portland, Oregon.